The Five Lives of Our Cat Zook

by Joanne Rocklin

  My mom, though, looks angry again.

  “I mean—” I say. “Zook—”

  My mother grabs me and pulls me toward her. Even if I tried to say more, it would come out all muffled. “Oh, Oona. Enough,” she says, and then they’re out the door.

  ’m too angry to fall asleep, so I decide to tell Freddy the Splat story. I’m angry at Freddy, too, for spilling the beans about the money. But I don’t want to come right out and say that. I don’t like being angry with my brother. So I decide to tell him the Splat story, which is perfect for the situation.

  I climb up the ladder and shake him gently. “Wake up, Fred. Time for another story. The Splat story. I’m turning on the light so you can see the rebuses.”

  Freddy sits up, all googly-eyed, ready to listen. Five-year-olds are either awake or asleep—ever notice? Nothing in the middle.

  When my father told me the Splat story for the very first time, I was very little, maybe four or five, like Freddy. His story was about a vain tortoise who couldn’t keep a secret. Mine will be about a vain cat who couldn’t keep one.

  “Once there was a cat named Beau Soleil, who used to be named Jewel,” I begin. I pull on my story ear. Fred leans against me.

  “Beau Soleil, or Beau for short, was beautiful, maybe the most beautiful in Eastern Rebusina. He had a big, wide forehead that made him look wise, and eyes like two shiny suns. His coat was a soft gray, like a rain cloud. The diamond on the pendant around his neck looked even shinier against his fur. His legs were skinny, but long and muscular.

  “Beau knew how handsome he was. As he traveled across Eastern Rebusina on his long, strong legs, birds twittered, and bees buzzed. Cows mooed, and donkeys lifted up their heads to bray. Like this: ‘HOO-HAH!’”

  Freddy giggles. “Did Beau have twenty-six toes, too?” he asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “‘Who is that handsome cat?’ the creatures all said.

  “‘It’s me, Beau. Why, thank you!’ Beau would purr modestly, as if being beautiful were a big surprise to him. He didn’t want them to think he was conceited.

  “Beau liked to look deep into his own yellow eyes whenever he stopped for a drink at a pond.

  “‘Ahhh,’ he said. ‘Who is that handsome cat?’ Then Beau would yowl, because he wasn’t surprised at all, ‘It’s me! It’s me! It’s me! EE-OW! EE-OWEY!’

  “One day, while admiring himself in a pond, Beau met one big goose and one medium-size one, shading themselves in a pickapoo grove at the pond’s edge.

  “‘Hello,’ said the bigger of the geese. ‘How handsome you are!’

  “‘Why, thank you!’ purred Beau, pretending to be surprised.

  “‘And you look very wise, too,’ said the other goose. ‘Wise enough to keep a secret.’

  “‘Secrets are fun to share,’ said the bigger goose. ‘As long as they are kept.’

  “‘Oh, I love secrets!’ said Beau.

  “‘But can you keep one?’ asked the medium-size goose.

  “‘Of course I can keep a secret!’ yowled Beau, although he wasn’t really sure.

  “‘Shh!’ honked the bigger goose. ‘Secrets travel quickly through the pickapoo vines! OK, here is the secret: We are about to go to Western Rebusina!’

  “‘What’s so wonderful about Western Rebusina?’ asked Beau.

  “‘Shh!’ honked the medium-size goose. She looked around to see if any others were listening. ‘Western Rebusina is bigger and better than Eastern Rebusina. There are huge lakes rather than little ponds. There’s lots of rain, the grass is always green, and yellow yarrow and strawberries cover the fields. Purple catmint flowers, too!’

  “‘Yum,’ purred Beau, who had a wonderful appetite.

  “‘Best of all,’ said the bigger goose, ‘Western Rebusina is practically empty! All that good stuff, just for us. And it will stay that way, as long as you don’t blab away our secret.’

  “‘I’ve already told you, I can keep a secret!’ said Beau. ‘Where is this wonderful place?’

  “‘We have a map from a red-billed yaba-blabba bird, who shared the secret with us. But really, this is as far as it goes. We can’t have anyone else finding out about it.’

  “The geese showed Beau the map. It was written in code.”

  I write down the directions for Freddy.

  “Wings,” says Freddy. “Then the letter W.”

  “Come on, what do wings help you do?”

  “Fly!”

  “And W means west.”

  “Fly west six hundred. Six hundred M. What’s that?”

  “Piles. Six hundred, and now think of something that starts with M and rhymes with ‘piles.’”

  “Oh. Miles. Fly west six hundred miles. Then N, north, nine hundred miles!”

  “‘Six hundred and then nine hundred!’ yowled Beau. ‘It will take me forever to get there!’

  “‘Not if you fly!’ said the medium-size goose.

  “‘But I can’t fly,’ said Beau.

  “The geese looked astonished. ‘You can’t fly? Why not?’

  “‘I guess because I don’t have any feathers,’ said Beau.

  “‘Oh, that’s easily fixed,’ said the bigger goose. ‘I have lots of extras.’

  “‘Me, too!’ said the medium-size goose. ‘We’ll just stick them on you with pond mud and pickapoo sap. And we’ll stick the map of Western Rebusina onto your belly in case we get lost.’

  “So that’s what they did, and Beau ran around and around the pond, taking lots of flying leaps into the air. But he still couldn’t get off the ground, even with those goose feathers sticking out all over him.

  “‘Oh, woe, we’ve got a big problem,’ said the bigger goose. ‘We can’t just leave you here now that you know the secret! No offense, but we sort of don’t trust you to keep it.’”

  I pause and look down at Freddy to see if that means anything to him personally. It doesn’t seem to.

  “‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ continued the medium-size goose. ‘We geese will hold the ends of this pickapoo branch in our bills, and you will bite the middle. We will flap our feathers. You will flap your four strong, muscular legs. Together, we will fly!’

  “‘Good idea. But remember,’ said the bigger goose. ‘Don’t tell anyone where we are going!’

  “‘I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again,’ said Beau. ‘I can keep a secret! Especially if you are asking me over and over and over not to share it! Let’s leave right away!’

  “So the geese bit the ends of the pickapoo branch and Beau bit the middle. He bit it so hard, his teeth were shaky and black for the rest of his future lives. And away they went, up, up, into the sky. Everyone flapped, and that’s the way they flew.

  “Way down below in the Eastern Rebusinian pastures, the cows mooed, ‘Hey, you up there! Where are you going?’

  “But Beau and the geese just kept on flapping and didn’t say a word.

  “By and by, they were flying higher than the pickapoo groves where the birds made their nests.

  “‘Where are you going?’ chirped the birds.

  “But Beau and the geese kept on flapping and didn’t tell their secret.

  “‘Where are you going?’ brayed a family of donkeys, trudging along a dusty road.

  “Beau and the geese kept on flapping and didn’t answer. Beau was so proud of himself! Now the geese know how well I can keep a secret! he thought.

  “Suddenly, the smallest donkey brayed, ‘HOO-HAH! HOO’s that funny-looking goose in the middle, the one with the feathers sticking out all over?’

  “Beau, who as you know was very vain, opened his mouth to say, ‘I am not a funny-looking goose! It’s me, me, ME, Beau! The handsomest cat in Eastern Rebusina! And Western Rebusina, too, once we get there!’

  “He opened his mouth to say all that, and, of course, let go of the pickapoo branch. The only thing he did get to say was ‘EE-OW! EE-OWEY! I’M FALLING!’ as he fell down, down, down to the ground.”


  I pause again, dramatically.

  “Then, SPLAT!

  “And that was the end of Beau, as we know him.”

  I know it’s a gruesome ending, but Splat’s the only ending there could be. My father told me that about stories: If the ending fits, then keep it.

  Still, I am worried about how Fred will take it.

  But Fred takes it very well.

  “EE-OW! EE-OWEY! I’m falling!” he says, hanging over the edge of the bed.

  “The story didn’t scare you?” I ask.

  “No. Because it’s to be continued, right?” he asks.

  “Oh, right,” I say. “And the story continues in Oakland, because the map of Western Rebusina looked like northern California and the geese were all mixed up.”

  “Cool,” says Freddy, still upside down.

  “And the moral of the story is … ?”

  “What’s a moral?” asks Fred.

  “Something you learn from hearing a story.”

  “Oh, OK. Never try to fly unless you were born with feathers,” says Fred.

  I laugh. “Go back to bed,” I say.

  Actually, I’m not sure what the moral of the story is. I’m not even sure it’s about secrets. Maybe it’s “Don’t be too vain.” But I wish Zook were still vain, bathing himself all over with his tongue, the way he used to.

  I remember asking my father, “Is that a true story?” I’d never heard of pickapoo groves and yaba-blabba birds, so I was a bit suspicious.

  My father said, “Well, I’m not sure it really happened. But let’s call it truly a story.”

  Truly a funny story. I feel a lot better, now that I’ve told it. And I’m not angry at Freddy anymore. Actually, I’m thinking he didn’t really spill the beans about the money in my underwear drawer, because he probably thought Mom knew all about it already. Five-year-olds think moms can read minds—ever notice?

  am dreaming about a cat’s purr.

  A cat’s purr is beautiful, like a strange lullaby.

  Prrrrrrr … Prrrrrrr …

  A cat’s purr feels like a car’s motor running.

  A cat’s purr has a smell, too, of kibble and litter and rain and sun and all the people who love it.

  And if I could taste a purr, I bet it would taste like taffy. Or the maple syrup on my pancakes for breakfast.

  I’m thinking all this in my dream. I’m hungry for syrup on pancakes, so I make a dream decision. I decide to wake up. You can sometimes do that while you’re sleeping—ever notice?

  Except now that I’m awake, I still hear that purring. I feel something warm and heavy lying across my legs. I open my eyes, lift my head, and take a peek.

  And there’s Zook! A real-life Zook, stretching his big brown limbs and looking straight at me with his denim-blue eyes! I am not dreaming. At least, I don’t think so. I pinch my arm like you’re supposed to do when you’re checking those things out. The pinch hurts.

  I am not dreaming.

  I begin to cry tears of joy. These are my first tears of joy ever. Three seconds ago, I didn’t believe in tears of joy. But what do you know? Here they are.

  Zook meows, then pulls himself up and lumbers over to me across the blankets. He licks my tears of joy. I draw my blanket over both of us. He still has that alcohol-banana smell from the vet.

  “Welcome home, big Zook,” I say.

  Now my mother comes into the bedroom, my brother Freddy behind her. “We were waiting for both of you to wake up!” Fred says. He jumps onto my bed and crawls under the blanket with me and Zook.

  “You have your shoes on,” I say.

  “Oh, I forgot,” says Freddy, kicking them off under the covers.

  “Zook was lying outside your bedroom all night, waiting to come in,” my mother says. And she lies down beside me, her arm around both me and Fred, a pretty full lower bunk. My mom and I are looking into each other’s eyes. She smells so good. She looks happy again. I’m glad.

  “I’m thinking about—” I say. My mother hugs me.

  “I know,” she says.

  I’m thinking about that time in the hospital with my mom and me in the bed with my father and the wicker basket and the napkin with strawberries on it, and the same alcohol-banana smell, and Zook purring so loud, just like now. Just like that other time, I have to get up to pee. But now I don’t want to think about that other time anymore, because today is a Beau Soleil happy day. Zook is home.

  So I get up and go to the bathroom and then I blow my nose. When I come back, my mother is still lying with Zook, and she has a certain Look on her face. A kind of scrunched up Look that means she has to say some hard things.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Three things,” she says. “Actually, four things. Number one: This was Dylan’s doing, you know.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a nurse, Oona, and feels very comfortable using a needle to give subcutaneous fluids. Subcutaneous means ‘under the skin.’ He’s going to help us care for Zook at home. He really wants to do that. And Oona, I like him.” She touches my cheek, and her own cheeks are pink. “I know he came into our lives all of a sudden. But you’ll like him, too. I know you will. So no more name-calling. Please, Oona.”

  I open my mouth to say something. I guess I leave it open too long, looking for the right words to keep my mom so happy. But my mother is already moving on.

  “Two: No more dancing at O’Leary’s. I’ve already spoken to them.”

  I nod dully. I was kind of expecting that.

  “Three: Dylan will be picking up Fred from now on.”

  “On his bike?” I say. Freddy whoops with excitement and does a somersault on the bed.

  “He has a car,” says my mother. “Actually, a truck.” Freddy whoops again, just a bit less excitedly. He likes trucks, as do I. I really think pickups are cool, except that’s way beside the point. But there’s no time to plead my case, because my mom is on to Number Four.

  “And four: I’m forbidding you to wear that Raiders sweatshirt anymore.”

  “No way,” I say. I wiggle away from my mother and sit up.

  “Way,” says my mother, trying to be cool.

  “But it smells like Daddy,” I cry out.

  “Oona, it doesn’t smell like anyone but you. It doesn’t get laundered enough to smell of anything else. It stinks, frankly. OK, OK, I don’t mean that exactly.” My mother looks guilty, as if she’s just called me a bad name. “But it smells like pizza and the alley, and our own kitchen, and all the places Oona Armstrong hangs out. Not bad smells, but not the odors you want on something you wear. Every day.”

  “STINKS!” agrees Freddy, snuggling contentedly against Zook.

  I walk over to the sweatshirt, flung on a chair. I pick it up and bury my nose in it. Dad. Sugarless gum and pine needle soap. Fainter and fainter, maybe just a memory. But still him.

  “It doesn’t smell bad,” I say. “Those are your own subjective opinions.” I’ve always wanted a chance to say that, ever since I found out what subjective means. “Mom, I think we should agree to disagree about this,” I add.

  And “agree to disagree” is one of the maturest things a person can say.

  “We can agree to disagree all you want, but you’re still not wearing that sweatshirt anymore.” My mother is sitting up now, and her mouth is that angry, straight line, which means “over her dead body,” which would make Freddy and me orphans. I can’t win.

  “Well, I’m going to stay in my bedroom forever then,” I say. I can hear how babyish I sound.

  Actually, for about ten seconds, I really mean it. I will be Autodidact Kid in my Raiders sweatshirt. I will stay in my room and learn everything I need online all by myself. And I’m sure I can convince Gramma Dee to sneak in tons of books, too, along with my meals. Gramma Dee loves sharing books and discussing them. She and Soma attend two book groups together.

  During these ten seconds, out of the corner of my eye, I can see Zook pulling himself up and moving toward the end of
my bunk. My mother and I are still staring each other down, and I’m thinking my Autodidact Kid thoughts. Only Freddy notices Zook climbing onto the chair.

  “Look!” he says.

  Zook is standing on top of my sweatshirt, and he’s kneading it back and forth, back and forth, with his big front paws. That’s what cats do when they’re sleepy and about to hunker down for a snooze. It’s instinctive, going back to when they were kittens drinking their mama’s milk. I myself get a warm milk feeling inside me, watching Zook do that.

  “Everything’s settled, then,” says my mother. “Looks like your sweatshirt is now officially a cat bed. At least Zook likes that smell.” She gives me a quick look.

  I duck my head, trying hard to hide my smile.

  “Hey, saw that smile!” my mother says.

  There’s an old, old custom in my family. It began way back before I was born, when my parents were first married. If there’s an argument going on and one of the arguers smiles, then the argument’s over and a compromise must be reached.

  “All right,” says my mother. “A compromise must be reached. You can wear that sweatshirt once a month. Take the deal or leave it. Now get dressed. Dylan’s coming over to begin Zook’s home treatment. And no black. I’m tired of seeing you in that color.”

  “Black’s not a color,” I say.

  “Right. Then I rest my case.”

  I shrug one shoulder, but we both know I’ve given in. I’m not ready to be an autodidact. Yet.

  Anyway, Zook’s home. Zook’s home! And he likes his new bed. Will I want to wear Zook’s bed, even if it’s only once a month? I don’t think so. But I don’t admit that to my mom.

  I’ve grown in the past few months since I began wearing that sweatshirt full-time. All my tops are too tight, except for one T-shirt that Maria and Mario gave me. Men’s size small, with O’LEARY’S—PIZZA SUPREMO on the back. It used to be way, way too big, but now it’s just a bit too big. So that’s what I wear.

  ow I will see Zook and the Villain, together at last! I will be watching his every move, prepared to point out the clues of his villainry to my mom. I’m just sorry I have to be the one to do that to her.